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Tyler submitted comments to the Department of Commerce on Monday opposing the idea that copyright law be tweaked to spur more remixes and mashups. Several other big-name performers submitted letters in support of Tyler’s comments, which were drafted with the help of Hollywood music lawyer Dina LaPolt.

“Artists can, and should continue to be able to, deny a use that they do not agree with. For one, an artist should be able to turn down uses in connection with messages that the artist finds objectionable,” LaPolt and Tyler said in their comments.

The pair’s submission is part of the Department of Commerce’s request for comment on a “copyright green paper” that the agency published last July, which analyzed current copyright law and raised questions about some rules that could be worth changing. The deadline for comments was last month — but LaPolt and Tyler received permission to submit a delayed entry, a Commerce spokesman said.

One question raised by the paper is whether a so-called compulsory license is worth considering. That concept would allow people to rework or use parts of a song without getting the original artist’s permission as long as they pay a fee.

“A compulsory license would allow someone to remix or sample music by Ted Nugent, noted gun ownership advocate, for a song promoting stricter gun control without Nugent’s permission,” LaPolt and Tyler write. “It is not hard to see that a compulsory license for derivative works could easily be abused in a way that negatively impacts creators.”

The comments point to examples of reuse that have gone against artists’ wishes: In 2010, then-Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) remixed a song from The Eagles’ Walsh as part of his political campaign. Last year, the Beastie Boys opposed a remix of their song “Girls” in an advertisement for toy company Goldieblox.

In addition to the Commerce Department’s analysis of copyright law, the House Judiciary Committee is conducting its own review of the current rules. Most recently, the panel — with Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) also receiving copies of the comments from LaPolt and Tyler — held a hearing on the scope of “fair use,” a heavily scrutinized part of copyright law that governs whether re-using a copyrighted work constitutes infringement.